Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Subaru

Subaru Takes Us Along To Drive On The Isle of Man, And We Try Not To Ball It Up

While the mild dehydration wasn't helping me, it was probably the least of my worries.

I am not a timid driver, nor an inexperienced one. But waiting to take a lap of the stunningly dangerous, 37.7-mile Snaefell Mountain Course at the Isle of Man TT had me on tilt, no fooling. I concentrated on the task in front of me, left hand working the gear pattern on the right-hand-drive Subaru BRZ I was to pilot, while kids on bikes, fat old beer-drinking men and other members of a fast-growing throng of onlookers pointed at our group of five Subarus and nine Americans. We were moments from our 'demonstration' for the motorcycle racing-hungry crowd and I was awfully glad, at that exact moment, that I'd emptied my bladder before buckling in.

Nothing had gone to plan at this point. In theory, by the time I was due up to tackle the TT, I was supposed to have had an invigorating warm up by way of a two-day drive from Belfast down to Dublin. Some weather on the Eastern Seaboard kept my flight grounded out of the States, however, and I had been forced to miss the whole of the Irish drive, meeting the team in Dublin just in time to fly to the Isle of Man the next day.

Upon reflection, the extra pint of O'Hara's at The Temple Bar the night before my Manx adventure was probably a mistake. Nursing a mild hangover and being scared witless do not cancel each other out, I've learned.

Of course, I'd driven Subaru's slick-handling BRZ - and its Scion twin the FR-S - four or five times and hundreds of miles already. But my experience with driving in the right seat of any car, on the right side of the road, was miniscule. Having made the trek through Ireland, most of my fellow journalists had at least had time to get familiar with this setup before being tossed to the The Mountain, but alas, not I. So, while the mild dehydration wasn't helping me, it was probably the least of my worries.Continue reading The Mountain, the Manx, the BRZ and how I learned to love racing

The Mountain, the Manx, the BRZ and how I learned to love racing originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 02 Jul 2013 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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